This is a synthesis of vendor pricing and product pages, not a hands-on test. We haven't run the same brand through all four tools and scored the output. What follows is what HubSpot, Otterly.ai, Profound and Mangools each publish about their own AI-visibility products, read directly and cited throughout.
Search Console shows a cluster of near-identical queries hitting this site this month, all naming some combination of HubSpot, Otterly.ai, Mangools and Profound alongside phrases like "generative engine optimization" and "share of voice comparison." None of them point at a page that actually compares the four. This is that page.
📋 How this was put together
Every price and limit below comes from the vendor's own page — hubspot.com/products/aeo, otterly.ai/pricing, tryprofound.com/pricing and mangools.com/ai-search-watcher — read in September 2026. No first-hand scoring test is claimed anywhere in this piece.
Why these four keep getting named together
All four sell a version of the same job: tell a marketer how often their brand shows up when someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google's AI features a question. That category didn't really exist two years ago. It has four very differently priced entry points now.
HubSpot and Mangools arrived at it from an existing SEO product line. Otterly.ai and Profound were built for this category from the start. That history shows up directly in how each one prices and scopes its plans.
HubSpot AEO: the $50 flat-rate option, bundled or standalone
HubSpot rebranded its free AI Search Grader into a paid product called AEO in 2026, still in beta. Per HubSpot's own product page, it costs a flat $50/month, or $45/month billed annually, for 25 tracked prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.
That single price covers brand visibility scoring, competitor share of voice, sentiment analysis, citation analysis, and prioritized content recommendations. Extra prompts can be purchased on top with no stated ceiling. Multiple brands each need a separate $50/month instance.
HubSpot draws a clear line between three related products on the same page: a free one-time AEO Grader snapshot, a free ongoing AI Search Sensor that tracks industry trends but not your brand specifically, and the paid AEO tool that actually tracks your brand's prompts over time. Only the paid tier does brand-level tracking.
Existing Marketing Hub Pro and Enterprise customers get an expanded version of the same tracking bundled in, with recommendations that pull from CRM data. A business with no HubSpot subscription pays the same $50/month as one that already has Marketing Hub.
Otterly.ai: the widest spread, from $29 to $489
Per Otterly.ai's own pricing page, three self-serve tiers scale almost entirely on prompt volume. Lite is $29/month for 15 prompts. Standard is $189/month for 100 prompts, and adds API and MCP access. Premium is $489/month for 400 prompts. Annual billing cuts roughly 15% off each tier.
Every tier, including Lite, tracks the same four engines out of the box: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot. Claude, Google AI Mode and Gemini are priced as separate add-ons on every plan, from $9/month for AI Mode on Lite up to $439/month for Claude on Premium.
That add-on structure means the sticker price understates real cost for anyone who wants Claude or Gemini coverage from day one. A Lite user who adds all three optional engines pays roughly $76/month before any extra prompts, nearly triple the $29 headline figure.
Otterly.ai also publishes a custom Enterprise tier starting at $1,000/month, and a separate Agency Partner track that raises prompt counts on Standard and Premium in exchange for signing up at those tiers first.
Profound: enterprise pricing with a self-serve front door
Profound positions itself toward larger teams, and per Profound's own pricing page, both of its named tiers require annual billing. Starter is $99/month, tracks ChatGPT only, and covers 50 prompts with 1,500 monthly responses analyzed. Growth is $399/month, adds Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, and covers 100 prompts with 9,000 monthly responses.
Both self-serve tiers include a limited number of "Agent" credits for AI-driven content generation: 100/month on Starter, 400/month on Growth. Profound's own FAQ recommends that any team larger than three people move to a custom Enterprise plan rather than stay on Growth.
Enterprise is the only tier that reaches Profound's full range: up to nine answer engines, including Google AI Mode, Gemini, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek and Claude, plus SSO, SOC2 compliance and dedicated Slack support. None of that is priced publicly.
Profound has raised $58.5 million across its funding rounds, more than the other three vendors here combined, and its pricing page reads accordingly: fewer tiers, a higher floor, and a clear on-ramp toward a sales conversation.
Mangools: a free grader plus a separate paid watcher, and a pricing gap
Mangools runs two distinct AI-visibility products, and conflating them is the most common mistake in searches for this comparison. AI Search Grader is a free, one-time snapshot: enter a brand, get a visibility score across ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Claude, Gemini, Mistral and Llama in under 60 seconds, with three models available with no signup.
AI Search Watcher is the ongoing, paid tracker — a different product, tracking eight engines including Grok and AI Mode, with repeatable multi-run prompts and competitor comparisons. Its own meta description states subscriptions start at $15.60/month on an annual plan, the lowest entry point of any tool in this piece.
Full tier-by-tier pricing for AI Search Watcher — what "Basic," "Premium" and "Agency" actually include — did not render on a direct fetch of the vendor's pricing page during this research. Confirm the current breakdown on Mangools' own site before buying.
Side by side on price alone
From cheapest self-serve entry point to most expensive: Mangools AI Search Watcher at $15.60/month, Otterly.ai Lite at $29/month, HubSpot AEO at $45–$50/month, Profound Starter at $99/month, Otterly.ai Standard at $189/month, Profound Growth at $399/month, and Otterly.ai Premium at $489/month. Mangools' free Grader and Profound and Otterly's custom Enterprise tiers sit outside that ladder entirely.
Price alone misleads here, because the tiers cover wildly different prompt counts and engine lists. HubSpot's $50 buys 25 prompts across 3 engines. Otterly's $29 buys 15 prompts across 4 engines, before add-ons. Neither number means much without the other.
"The cheapest plan and the most expensive plan in this category are separated by more than price — they're separated by how many AI engines a vendor thinks your prompt is even worth asking."
What none of the ranking pages for this query mention
Several existing comparison posts found in research for this piece — from sites like Trakkr, That Marketing Buddy and AEO Labs — cover these tools individually or in pairs. Few directly compare all four vendors named in the query cluster driving this article, and fewer still separate Mangools' free Grader from its paid Watcher, which this piece treats as two different products because the vendor does.
None of the pages reviewed flagged that Otterly.ai's headline price excludes three of seven possible engines by default. That add-on structure changes the real monthly cost more than any other factor across these four vendors.
Who each tool fits, based on the published limits
A solo marketer wanting a single free check fits Mangools' AI Search Grader or HubSpot's free AEO Grader — both one-time snapshots, no card required. A small business wanting ongoing tracking on a tight budget fits Mangools AI Search Watcher's $15.60 entry point or Otterly's $29 Lite tier, accepting the add-on costs for extra engines.
A marketing team already inside HubSpot gets the most convenience from HubSpot AEO, especially on Marketing Hub Pro or Enterprise where CRM data feeds the recommendations. A larger team or agency serving multiple clients is the audience Otterly's Standard and Premium tiers, and Profound's Growth and Enterprise tiers, are built for.
None of this is a verdict on which tool's visibility score correlates best with real AI citations. That would require running identical prompts through all four platforms and comparing results against each other — the test this piece is declining to fabricate.
💡 Key takeaway
Mangools and HubSpot both offer genuinely free one-time checks worth running before paying for anything. Ongoing tracking starts around $15–$30/month at the low end and climbs past $400/month once agencies or nine-engine coverage enter the picture.
The obvious caveat
This category is younger than most SaaS niches this site covers, and every vendor here has changed its pricing or naming at least once in 2026 — HubSpot's own AEO product used to be called AI Search Grader. Treat the figures above as accurate for September 2026 and confirm directly with each vendor before buying. This article makes no first-hand claim about which tool's score is most accurate.
Frequently Asked Questions
This post was researched and refined with AI tools.